Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee

But you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, steadfastness, ¹¹persecutions, and sufferings—those things that happened to me at Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. I endured those persecutions. The Lord delivered me out of them all. ¹²Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. ¹³But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. ¹⁴But you remain in the things which you have learned and have been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them. ¹⁵From infancy, you have known the holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

“Two men went up into the temple to pray; one was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector. ¹¹The Pharisee stood and prayed by himself like this: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of men: extortionists, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ¹²I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.’ ¹³But the tax collector, standing far away, wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his chest, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ ¹⁴I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”